1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a lantern, and more particularly to a collapsible lantern comprising a collapsible arrangement which is capable of allowing the lantern to conveniently work between two different modes of operation.
2. Description of Related Arts
A conventional illumination device, such as a spot light, usually comprises a housing and an illumination device provided in the housing for selectively generating illumination toward a particular spot. The user may manual hold the spot light and point it towards a desirable position. Conventionally, spot lights such as those described above usually generate illumination from a single point source of light. This kind of illumination pattern is highly beneficial when the user needs to illuminate a particular spot in larger space.
On the other hand, a conventional lantern usually comprises a housing and an illumination device mounted in the housing for providing illumination in a predetermined area. Very often, such conventional lantern utilizes fluorescent light as a light source for providing a line source of light. Such light source sacrifices light intensity for spatial reaching of the illumination. In other words, conventional lantern usually produces illumination that can have a wider area of illumination than that of spot light. However, the intensity of the illumination of lanterns is usually substantially smaller than traditional spot lights. Thus, it is not suitable for a person to use a lantern to illuminate a particular spot. Rather, the person has to use a spot light for such purpose. On the other hand, it is also not suitable for a person to use a spot light to provide illumination for a relatively larger area of space, because conventional spot lights are designed to provide illumination of high intensity at a desirable spot.
Because of these limitations, people have to purchase one lantern and one spot light for different purposes. Moreover, there exist a hybrid type of lamp in which it comprises both a point source of light and a fluorescent lamp. As such, this type of lamp may provide both types of illuminations. However, one major disadvantage of this type of lamp is that it is very bulky in size, because it typically comprises a fluorescent lamp and a high-intensity LED or light bulk mounted at different positions of a housing. Since the housing must accommodate two different kinds of light source, the size of the housing is very bulky. This disadvantage substantially impairs widespread application of this type of lamp.